You may want to take a closer look. There's more to this painting than meets the eye. And yes, it's an acrylic painting of a man, but I didn't paint it on canvas. I painted it directly on top of the man.
Pogledajte malo bolje. Postoji nešto u vezi sa ovom slikom što nije vidljivo na prvi pogled. Da, to je akrilna slika čoveka, ali nisam je naslikala na platnu. Naslikala sam je direktno na samom čoveku.
What I do in my art is I skip the canvas altogether, and if I want to paint your portrait, I'm painting it on you, physically on you. That also means you're probably going to end up with an earful of paint, because I need to paint your ear on your ear. Everything in this scene, the person, the clothes, chairs, wall, gets covered in a mask of paint that mimics what's directly below it, and in this way, I'm able to take a three-dimensional scene and make it look like a two-dimensional painting. I can photograph it from any angle, and it will still look 2D. There's no Photoshop here. This is just a photo of one of my three-dimensional paintings.
U svojoj umetnosti ja u potpunosti zaobilazim slikarsko platno, a ukoliko želim da naslikam vaš portret, slikam ga na vama, fizički na vama. To takođe znači da ćete verovatno završiti sa ušima punim boje pošto vaše uho moram da naslikam na vašem uhu. Sve u ovoj sceni, osoba, odeća, stolice, zid, biva prekriveno maskom od boje koja odražava ono što je direktno ispod nje, i na ovaj način sam u mogućnosti da učinim da trodimenzionalna scena izgleda kao dvodimenzionalna slika. Mogu da je fotografišem iz bilo kog ugla i ona će i dalje izgledati kao 2D. Ovde nema Fotošopa. Ovo je samo fotografija jedne od mojih trodimenzionalnih slika.
You might be wondering how I came up with this idea of turning people into paintings. But originally, this had nothing to do with either people or paint. It was about shadows. I was fascinated with the absence of light, and I wanted to find a way that I could give it materiality and pin it down before it changed. I came up with the idea of painting shadows. I loved that I could hide within this shadow my own painted version, and it would be almost invisible until the light changed, and all of a sudden my shadow would be brought to the light.
Možda se pitate kako sam došla na ideju da pretvaram ljude u slike. Ali prvobitno, ovo nije imalo nikakve veze ni sa ljudima ni sa slikama. Radilo se o senkama. Bila sam fascinirana odsustvom svetla, želela sam da pronađem način da je materijalizujem i zarobim pre nego što se promeni. Došla sam na ideju da slikam senke. Svidelo mi se što sam mogla da se sakrijem unutar ove senke, moje sopstvene naslikane verzije, i ona bi bila skoro nevidljiva sve dok se osvetljenje ne promeni i odjednom, moja senka bi bila izložena svetlu.
I wanted to think about what else I could put shadows on, and I thought of my friend Bernie. But I didn't just want to paint the shadows. I also wanted to paint the highlights and create a mapping on his body in greyscale. I had a very specific vision of what this would look like, and as I was painting him, I made sure to follow that very closely. But something kept on flickering before my eyes. I wasn't quite sure what I was looking at. And then when I took that moment to take a step back, magic. I had turned my friend into a painting. I couldn't have foreseen that when I wanted to paint a shadow, I would pull out this whole other dimension, that I would collapse it, that I would take a painting and make it my friend and then bring him back to a painting.
Smišljala sam na šta bih sve mogla da stavim senke i setila sam se svog prijatelja Bernija. Ali nisam želela samo da slikam senke. Htela sam da slikam i osvetljene delove i da mapiram njegovo telo u crno-beloj skali. Imala sam vrlo preciznu viziju kako bi to trebalo da izgleda, i dok sam ga slikala, nastojala sam da se pažljivo pridržavam toga. Ali nešto mi je uporno titralo pred očima. Nisam bila potpuno sigurna u šta gledam. I onda, kada sam iskoristila taj trenutak da se odmaknem, magija. Pretvorila sam svog prijatelja u sliku. Nisam mogla da predvidim da ću, želeći da naslikam senku, izvući ovu potpuno drugu dimenziju, da ću je srušiti, da ću od slike napraviti svog prijatelja i nakon toga ga ponovo pretvoriti u sliku.
I was a little conflicted though, because I was so excited about what I'd found, but I was just about to graduate from college with a degree in political science, and I'd always had this dream of going to Washington, D.C., and sitting at a desk and working in government. (Laughter) Why did this have to get in the way of all that?
Ipak, bila sam pomalo rastrzana, jer sam bila toliko uzbuđena onim što sam otkrila, ali baš tada je trebalo da diplomiram političke nauke, i oduvek sam sanjala da odem u Vašington i da sedim za radnim stolom i da radim u vladi. (Smeh) Zbog čega je ovo moralo da stane na put svemu tome?
I made the tough decision of going home after graduation and not going up to Capitol Hill, but going down to my parents' basement and making it my job to learn how to paint. I had no idea where to begin. The last time I'd painted, I was 16 years old at summer camp, and I didn't want to teach myself how to paint by copying the old masters or stretching a canvas and practicing over and over again on that surface, because that's not what this project was about for me. It was about space and light.
Donela sam tešku odluku da se nakon diplomiranja vratim kući i da se ne popnem na Kapitol Hil već da siđem u podrum svojih roditelja i da moj posao bude da naučim da slikam. Nisam imala pojma od čega da počnem. Kada sam poslednji put slikala bilo mi je 16 godina, u letnjem kampu i nisam želela da se naučim da slikam tako što ću kopirati stare majstore ili razvijati platno i vežbati iznova i iznova na toj površini, jer za mene je ovaj projekat bio nešto sasvim drugo. Radilo se o prostoru i svetlu.
My early canvases ended up being things that you wouldn't expect to be used as canvas, like fried food. It's nearly impossible to get paint to stick to the grease in an egg. (Laughter) Even harder was getting paint to stick to the acid in a grapefruit. It just would erase my brush strokes like invisible ink. I'd put something down, and instantly it would be gone.
Moja prva platna su bile stvari za koje ne biste očekivali da budu korišćene kao slikarsko platno, poput pržene hrane. Gotovo je nemoguće naterati boju da se zalepi za mast u jajetu. (Smeh) Još teže je bilo naterati boju da se drži za kiselinu u grejpfrutu. Moji potezi četkicom bili bi jednostavno izbrisani poput nevidljivog mastila. Nešto bih naslikala i istog trenutka to bi nestalo.
And if I wanted to paint on people, well, I was a little bit embarrassed to bring people down into my studio and show them that I spent my days in a basement putting paint on toast. It just seemed like it made more sense to practice by painting on myself. One of my favorite models actually ended up being a retired old man who not only didn't mind sitting still and getting the paint in his ears, but he also didn't really have much embarrassment about being taken out into very public places for exhibition, like the Metro.
A što se tiče slikanja na ljudima, pa, bilo me je pomalo sram da dovedem ljude u svoj studio i pokažem im kako provodim dane u podrumu nanoseći boju na tost. Jednostavno se činilo da je razumnije vežbati tako što ću slikati na sebi. Jedan od mojih omiljenih modela je bio starac u penziji kome ne samo da nije smetalo to što mora mirno da sedi i što mu boja ulazi u uši, već mu nije bilo ni posebno neugodno da nastupa na javnim mestima i da bude izložen, poput podzemne železnice.
I was having so much fun with this process. I was teaching myself how to paint in all these different styles, and I wanted to see what else I could do with it. I came together with a collaborator, Sheila Vand, and we had the idea of creating paintings in a more unusual surface, and that was milk. We got a pool. We filled it with milk. We filled it with Sheila. And I began painting. And the images were always completely unexpected in the end, because I could have a very specific image about how it would turn out, I could paint it to match that, but the moment that Sheila laid back into the milk, everything would change. It was in constant flux, and we had to, rather than fight it, embrace it, see where the milk would take us and compensate to make it even better. Sometimes, when Sheila would lay down in the milk, it would wash all the paint off of her arms, and it might seem a little bit clumsy, but our solution would be, okay, hide your arms. And one time, she got so much milk in her hair that it just smeared all the paint off of her face. All right, well, hide your face. And we ended up with something far more elegant than we could have imagined, even though this is essentially the same solution that a frustrated kid uses when he can't draw hands, just hiding them in the pockets.
Veoma sam se zabavljala kroz ceo taj proces. Učila sam kako da slikam u svim tim različitim stilovima, i želela sam da vidim za šta bih još mogla to da iskoristim. Sastala sam se sa saradnicom, Šilom Vand, i dobile smo ideju da stvaramo slike na još neobičnijoj površini, a to je bilo mleko. Nabavile smo bazen. Ispunile smo ga mlekom. Ispunile smo ga Šilom. I ja sam počela da slikam. Slike su na kraju uvek bile potpuno neočekivane, jer sam mogla da imam vrlo određenu sliku kako će sve ispasti, mogla sam da slikam u nameri da to i dobijem, ali u trenutku kada bi Šila zaronila u mleko, sve bi se promenilo. Stalno je dolazilo do promena, i umesto da se tome opiremo, bile smo primorane da to prigrlimo i vidimo kuda će nas mleko odvesti i da kompenzujemo da bismo to učinile još boljim. Ponekad, kada bi Šila legla u mleko, ono bi sapralo svu boju sa njenih ruku, i možda se čini pomalo nespretnim, ali naše rešenje bilo je, u redu, sakrij ruke. Jednom joj je toliko mleka ušlo u kosu da joj se sva boja sa lica skinula. Dobro, onda sakrij lice. Na kraju smo dobile nešto daleko elegantnije nego što smo mogle i da zamislimo, iako je ovo u osnovi bilo isto rešenje kome frustrirani klinci pribegavaju kada ne umeju da nacrtaju šake, jednostavno ih skriju u džepove.
When we started out on the milk project, and when I started out, I couldn't have foreseen that I would go from pursuing my dream in politics and working at a desk to tripping over a shadow and then turning people into paintings and painting on people in a pool of milk. But then again, I guess it's also not unforeseeable that you can find the strange in the familiar, as long as you're willing to look beyond what's already been brought to light, that you can see what's below the surface, hiding in the shadows, and recognize that there can be more there than meets the eye.
Kada smo započele projekat s mlekom, i kada sam ja krenula sa tim, nisam mogla da pretpostavim da ću od ganjanja političke karijere i rada za radnim stolom doći do saplitanja senke praćenog pretvaranjem ljudi u slike i slikanja na ljudima u bazenu punom mleka. Ali opet, pretpostavljam da onda nije neočekivano da je moguće pronaći nešto neobično u nečemu već poznatom, dok god ste spremni da tražite dalje od onoga što je već izloženo svetlu, da je moguće videti ono što se krije ispod površine i skriva se u senkama, i prepoznati da u tome može postojati mnogo više nego što se čini.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)